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Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Plastiscines are furious. Why? Because they've come to England, the home of punk and rock and the Beatles and the Libertines and football hooligans, and everybody is just standing there staring at them, politely holding bottles of beer.

The Parisian pop-punk quartet continue to be quite cross for the rest of the show, cajoling the audience in between numbers for not providing sufficient applause. Then, abruptly, lead singer Katty Besnard decides she's had enough.

"Stop!" she screams, and her band-mates shudder to a halt. They watch, bemused and intrigued, as Besnard prowls over to the side of the stage, singles out two cowering punters and starts screaming in their faces for not joining in with the show. Strands of her I Dream Of Jeannie beehive work themselves loose as she turns on the rest of the audience. The gig will not continue, she pouts, until everyone is on their feet.

I've never seen the Plastiscines before, so I've no idea whether this sort of teenage tantrum is de rigeur - but, hell, it's exciting. And, to my great astonishment, it works. By the time drummer Anoushka Vandevyver (great name) counts the song back to life, the venue is, in the words of Destiny's Child, Jumpin' Jumpin'.

Leaving the show, I have no idea what the Plastiscines will sound like on record. Live, the best comparison I can make is Elastica covered by the Hives - an exploding supernova of white noise and bratty riffs. But if the evidence on their MySpace and Youtube pages is to be believed, this cacophony has been given a glossy coat of pop varnish in the studio, turning them into a sort of Brigitte Bardot Go-Gos (The Bardot-Gos?)

Earlier in the night, we were treated to a small dose of Daisy Dares You, who proved similarly spunky, albeit with a bit more British reserve (and a strange tendency to work creaky old Led Zeppelin riffs into her songs).

I'm a bit worried about her fan-base, though. Rather than a horde of screaming teenagers, Daisy's audience consisted mainly of sinister middle-aged men, several of whom looked like they should be on some sort of police register. Creepy.